It's a great combination for travel professionals as they encourage tourists to visit The Forest Region.

Collaboration is needed to reach the goal.

The Texas Forest Trail Region takes in 32 counties and numerous towns, cities, and attractions. On Wednesday, about 10 travel professionals drove the roadways they promote to their destination of Nacogdoches.

Call the gathering a board meeting, but really it's a road trip with a wider purpose.

“The size of all of our towns, they're a little bit smaller, so we collaborate together to push out our message,” said Holly Conley, the assistant vice president of marketing for Visit Tyler. It's really easy to travel between towns. You can make your own little road trip."

The travel professionals bring ideas to the table.

"Because everybody has something special to offer,” said Sherry Morgan, the tourism coordinator for the Conroe Convention and Visitors Bureau. “You just have to find what it is."

Morgan joined others in the promotion of lakes, the arts, and history.

"We were founded on three major industries, timber, oil, and rail,” Morgan said. “We are also the birthplace of the Lone Star flag."

Rachel Galan, the educator/interpreter at the Caddo Mounds State Historic Site encourages travel on Highway 21, or “down the historic El Camino de Real de los Tejas” to visit the Caddo Mounds Historic site.

"October 3rd our first true partnership with Mission Tejas State Park,” Galan said. “And it's a park hop where we will spend the morning learning about native plants and foraging at Caddo Mound. The Friends of Caddo Mounds are sponsoring lunch for everybody, and then we're moving over to Mission Tejas State Park to do more plant identification."

The October plant attraction in Tyler is, of course, the Rose Festival.

Marty Prince, the executive director for the Texas Forest Trail Region, keeps everyone on track, even when it comes to organization branding.

“We have to assume the power,” Prince said. “So if they call us the Pineywoods, or they call us Deep East Texas we have to say, 'We are the Forest Region in the Pineywoods or the Pineywoods of East Texas in the Forest Region. We have to take what they already think we are and merge those two so they become synonymous."

By any name, these marketing executives will provide visitors a good time and then send them down the road to a Forest Region neighbor.

Deputies with the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office served a felony arrest warrant on a man after he allegedly tried to sneak a small plastic baggie containing marijuana in to the county jail Wednesday.

Deputies with the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office served a felony arrest warrant on a man after he allegedly tried to sneak a small plastic baggie containing marijuana in to the county jail Wednesday.